July 13, 2022 • 30 mins
Welcoming Anna Sale to (the last episode of) The Pod Club! After a season filled with incredible recommendations, plenty of laughter and a few too many f bombs, it’s time to go out with a bang. There was only one person we wanted to have on as a guest for the final show… Anna Sale of Death, Sex & Money! The iconic host who is never afraid to go there joins host Jo Piazza to get a little uncomfortable in the best possible way. From orgasms that feel like “sunshine in your veins”’ to the January 6th Capitol Attack to the overwhelming dumpster fire of parenting, we finish out the Pod Club with an episode that has a little something for everyone. As we say adieu, we want to say thank you to all of our listeners. We hope we made your journey through the podcastverse just a little bit easier because as we always say, life is too short to listen to bad podcasts.
Anna’s Show:
Death, Sex & Money
Hard
Shows Mentioned:
The 11th: LOVE
Will be Wild
Canary
Childproof
Abortion Resources:
- https://abortion.cafe/ - this is a collection of abortion resources
- shoutyourabortion.com - this is a campaign to normalize abortion
- https://donations4abortion.com/ - donate to support abortion funds by state
- https://secure.actblue.com/donate/supportabortionfunds - donate to the national network of abortion funds (donations split between 80+ abortion funds)
- https://usow.org/repro/volunteer/ - this is a list of abortion clinics across the country that need volunteers
- https://dontbanequality.com/ - this is language for companies to use to stand against the ruling
- plancpills.org/ambassadors - here are early abortion access pills you can store in your cabinet
- https://prochoice.org/ - this is an abortion access hotline
- https://natalist.com/products/early-pregnancy-test-strips - buy early pregnancy test strips
- https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control - get info on types of birth control
- https://choice.crd.co/ - this is a collection of these above links and more. Managed by @starplanes - DM them on twitter to add more
- https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-policy-absence-roe - abortion policy by state as of June 1, 2022
- More in-depth version: https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Um, so do we have that podcast? Yes, I figured
it out. I got the numbers on the side of
the spreadsheet. So, um, we have made We put three
hundred and forty four things in the feed since we started.
God that that has to be more than more than
there were episodes of mash. I think, oh, let's see,
(00:25):
let's let's let's let's fact check ourselves. We can find
out it's a podcast about podcast podcast. Hello, welcome to
the pod Club. So I have some good news and
some bad news, which really feels like just the state
of the world. Here's some good news, here's some more snooze.
(00:47):
This is our last episode. Yeah, it's our last episode
of the pod Club. Everything has to come to an end,
and frankly, some things should have come to an end
earlier than they did. For example, Friends Never should have
had a season where Joey and Rachel got together. Never.
So I need to end before the pod Club has
the equivalent of Joey and Rachel getting together. I don't
(01:08):
want you to be sad. I want you to be
happy because we are saving one of the most iconic
podcast hosts to be our last guest on this show.
I'm gonna fan girl and no one can do anything
about it. Because it's our last episode. Today, we are
talking to the one, the only, Anna Sale. Anna is
the host of Death, Sex, and Money, the long running
(01:30):
interview show from w n y C that encourages conversations
about very uncomfortable things. Annah created one of the first
podcasts that goes to the places that many journalists do
not go. She talks about everything from how student loans
can completely affect and disrupt and ruin your life, to
(01:52):
the nuances of a marriage, to the realities of sex work,
to why viagra was created and what it means for society.
Large sod that just turned into a bad biographon. Anna
has been an inspiration to me and so many other
podcast hosts, so she is the perfect person to round
out this series of podcast recommendations. I started my first podcast,
(02:23):
Committed five years ago, which feels so long ago at
the at the time, Death Sets and Money really set
the bar for me for how how I wanted a
podcast to sound, For how good I wanted it to be,
for how just raw and vulnerable I wanted all of
my my interviews to sound. So yeah, this this is
(02:47):
my time to fan girl until you thank you for
setting me on a path to make too many podcasts.
You're welcome, You're welcome. Thank you. That means a lot.
What was the original concept when you were first starting
on death, sex and money? What did you say that
You're like, all right, this is what this show is about.
(03:07):
I think I was, you know, I was in a
period of life I was when I pitched the show.
I think I was thirty three, I had I was divorced,
I had been a reporter for a long time. Was like,
do I want to stay in New York City? What
is my life? Who? What am I about? And I
had met this guy who was living in Wyoming. So
(03:28):
I'm like being in one of those life moments where
you're like, oh, I didn't think I was going to
be in this situation quite like this. I thought some
other things were nailed down. My feeling was, um, you know,
I've always been a huge consumer of interviews and interview shows.
I love interviewing. That's always what I love doing. When
I was, you know, started out as a public radio reporter,
(03:49):
but I would get frustrated um listening sometimes where you
could tell, you know, they sort of like when when
interviewers would skip over the question that I most wanted
to hear because maybe it would come off as like
a little too banal or crass, you know, like, um,
you know questions like oh, when you were writing that
novel that you you know you've never written a book before,
(04:11):
like how are you paying for things when you quit
your job? You know like um? Or like how did
you know this is such an unlikely romance? Like wasn't
that terrifying to decide to just like commit? You know, um,
the good stuff totally, like the stuff that like animates
the conversation when you're talking with your closest friends and
(04:31):
getting caught up. So um, that's what I wanted to
make a show that focused on that wasn't going to
skip over those questions, and was going to do it
with a sense of like, I don't care what you
figured out, if it works for you, I want to
know how it's working for you or how it's not
working for you, what the trade offs are? Like I
(04:52):
wanted it to feel like a place with that was
driven by curiosity and not judgment, and that was very
open um about like who was who was a worthy
person to spend time with and listen to? Um? So
so that was Those were all sort of things that
I wanted to get into. And then when I thought
(05:13):
of the name death, sex, and money, I just thought
it was really funny because I was like, Okay, that
kind of like sums it up, Like those are the
big things, you know, That's why there are big stakes here,
you know, so let's let's just focus the conversation around
those things. I know this is a crazy question and
it's probably hard to answer because it's like asking you
to choose among your children. But do you have a
(05:33):
favorite episode? I mean I think that they change depending
on like what I need. Uh you know, Um, I
was I was in a really different place in my
life when the show started. Um. I was not married,
I was not a parent, I was living in New
York City. And now I'm married with two kids and
live in California, and you know, I'm sort of like
(05:56):
feel more much more confident in what I want to
contribute to world professionally. I had no idea when I
was starting the show. I was like, maybe this will work.
So I find it's like what what serves me is different. Um,
one episode that I feel like I just loved making
and I feel so proud of it just I haven't
(06:17):
heard anything else like it, and I loved the people
that I got to meet while making it. Was sepisode
called I Was Your Father Until I wasn't, And it started.
You know, part of the reason it's special is it
started with an email from a listener in our email inbox,
which is always a wonderful way to get a conversation going.
And it was UM, a young man you know, in
(06:38):
his late twenties I believe at the time who wrote
us this story and was just like, I don't know
if you've ever done anything like this, but UM, I've
just had this really, you know, really hard experience of
thinking I was the parent of this young girl. Um
that resulted from you know, a hook up with this
(06:59):
woman and I thought that I got her pregnant. So
I was in this child's life and the child was
I think between two and three years old when he
found out he wasn't the biological father, and then developed
a relationship with the biological father who was finding out
about this child after the child had been born. And
(07:22):
there's this scene that they I just I talked to
both men and there's this scene where they described what
it was like to move the crib out of the
one guy's home and loaded up into the truck of
the other guys to take it to the other guy's home. Um,
and it just was, you know, heartbreaking. But also what
(07:46):
I what I really found just really heart filled about
it was like these two guys just like showed up,
you know, like, um, they showed up for this child
with a lot of love of and in a really complicated, hard,
difficult situation, and they showed up for each other. Um,
And so I just love that episode. Victor started paying
(08:17):
child support, Tony stopped. Between them, they decided to treat
it like they were square. So Victor didn't reimburse Tony
or anything like that, but he did take a truckload
of baby stuff off Tony's hands when Tony was beginning
to try to move on a baby dresser, crib chair,
(08:37):
tons of toys, you know, it's what a baby's room
looks like. And so rather than him spend all of
this money and by new things, it made sense just
to have the things that she already loved and cared about.
And so one day he just came over to my
house and actors truck into my driveway and I just
(08:58):
unloaded everything into his truck, and that was I mean
physically and literally all in one afternoon. It became pretty real,
you know, to just put everything in boxes and then
just give it to this guy. You loaded up the
truck together. Did you cry um like around him? No? No,
(09:28):
I think we just shook hands. Can I tell you
a funny coda to that episode? Yes? Oh my god,
are you kidding? I always wanted something I loved hearing
from a listener because this basically you know what turned
(09:48):
out that the mother of this child had had been
with both these guys. She'd met him both at bars,
and um, we had a listener right in who was like,
where are the bars that this woman goes to? Because
I want to meet some Then like funny, yes, a
hundred percent, Like how do you how do you meet
(10:10):
two really good men in the same bar? I never
so I want to. I want to tell our audience
about this mini a mini series you've been doing called hard,
which is just the best name for what this podcast
is about. And the third episodes, um subtitle softening Expectations
(10:36):
has made me just chuckle every time. That also happened
in our slack channel, we were like, yes, yes, we
got that one. Yes, this is it and hard is
What else could it be about? But via gra and
the history of viagra and the cultural significance of viagra.
(10:57):
How did you decide to do a sub section of
the podcast UM? It was actually the idea of Katie Bishop,
who are longtime EP and UM executive producer, and she
was it was like more than a year and a
half ago, I feel like and and she just sent
a slack message and was just like, I have an idea,
(11:19):
and she somehow landed on the idea that UM noticed
that was the year Biagara came to market, and she
was like, I feel like years coming up on twenty
five years. It's a good moment to be like, how
did this change the way we UM talk about what
we do talk about about how bodies work and sex?
(11:40):
And what was the origin story of viagra? How was
it introduced at the time, and how is it marketed now?
And how has it changed sex? And and what I
found kind of interesting doing these interviews is like, one
of the people I talked to in that last in
the third episode is a is a guy who UM
how at a spinal cord injury and has been paralyzed
(12:02):
from his chest down since he was in his early twenties,
and um, the way that he talked about what you know,
he sometimes uses viagra to have penetrative sex with his partners.
He's a gay man. And he also has learned to
experience orgasm through stimulation in very different ways, like having
his head massaged, and what that feels like, and what
(12:26):
what what sort of climax feels like. It doesn't just
feel like one brief moment. It feels like this experience
where he described it felt like sunshine going all through
his vein. I ask for um, any kind of stimulation
in the places that I feel so I don't. I
(12:50):
don't have a lot of skin sensation anymore. I think
probably of like the real estate of my body, Like
my actual epidermis is no longer sensitive. So when I
am aroused or am in like a sexual experience, all
of that becomes like heightened and incredibly sensitive and responsive
(13:14):
to touch. So UM, any kind of stimulation like just
rubbing hands across my chest when I have chest hair,
or even um a little bit of like um stubble
on my beard or on my neck, especially on the
back of my neck. Sometimes I will intentionally make sure
that I have hair because the sensation is all that
(13:37):
much higher and intense. So UM, I will ask for
a partner to like rub a hand like an open
palm across the top of my chest. That always literally
kind of makes me gasp with pleasure. UM sometimes kind
of like actually the inside of untarget this this all
(14:00):
sounds so and like listening to me say this and
wondering what abled people must feel about. Like when it
comes time for me to actually experience the height of pleasure, UM,
I usually am asking or training a partner to kiss
my kind of like the front of my neck um
(14:22):
up to my ear, and while they're on my ear,
to take their fingers and run it against my scalp
on the same side of that year. And there's something
about that combination that literally takes me from like if
I'm like at a six of pleasure and arousal to
(14:45):
like at nine and a ten, where I am with
that sequence and staying there, I am climaxing within probably
a couple of minutes, and then um, if a partner
just stays there and continues to do that, I will
continue to stay in that climax space for as long
(15:07):
as that partners there or until it becomes unbearable. For me,
what I found interesting talking to him about it was
I was like, Oh, this way that we talk about,
you know, viagra and erections being the center of you know,
people who have penises sex lives, it does like it
(15:28):
has you know, yes it's public, and yes it's more
open than female bodies, but we're not. But it has
sort of like left out a lot of room for
experimentation of all these other ways you can experience pleasure.
And there's a lot of like anxiety and high stakes
around that that have gotten in the way of of
people having satisfying sex lives. I found that for me
(15:49):
it's sort of like complicated that narrative of like, oh,
the whole pharmaceutical industry rushed to help deal with the
erection problem and have ignored ignored other bodies for a
really long time. Um, it just complicated that. And I
also learned that like the discovery of viagara was like
a total surprise fluke. Um, they thought they were making
(16:09):
a heart drug and then they just they discovered that
a side effect, unexpected side effect, was corrections popping up.
God God bless it for the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, I
think it's helped a lot of people. You know, what
(16:53):
are you listening to to get inspired or maybe just
to take your mind off death, sex and money and
all of the heavy things you're listening to that you're
that you're talking. I listened to a lot of different things,
and it's I find it very interesting to just notice
what are the podcasts I turned to in what situations?
Because I think, you know, it's just this interesting window
(17:14):
into my appetite. UM and I think on demand any
anything on demand, like you're learning a lot about yourself
by what you choose to click on. UM. I I
am a real sort of omnivorous podcast listener. I'm like
looking at my my pod pocket casts. Um Uh. One
(17:35):
thing that I just find really like a fun listen
always that I listened to for craft and for like
inspiration is um the Eleventh from Pineapple Street Studios. Do
you ever listen to that podcast? So people have recommended
the Eleventh to me many times and I still I
(17:55):
still haven't started, but the concept of it is fascinating explaining. Yeah,
it's really it's this. I mean, it's also seems like
a very smart management tool. For people who are a
creative podcast makers. So so the eleventh is this show
where the eleventh of every month they release a new
kind of show, like it's sometimes it's a one off,
(18:15):
sometimes it's a limited series. UM, sometimes it's mean it's
just you don't know what you're going to get a surprise, UM.
And it has kind of like an experimental feel each month. UM,
Like last let's see March. I listened to this. It
was like a I did not never had never heard
(18:36):
of this album. It's it's it was like a feature
of this musician who's a long time member a broken
social scene, and he had made this album back in
two thousand seven when he was on paternity leave, where
he basically like interviewed a bunch of people that he
knew and his neighbors and then like took those recordings
and then made music out of them. So not just
like putting music underneath the tape, but like making his
(18:59):
one of his neighbor's voice into like a trombone, making
another one like representing it by like a certain percussive sound.
And it was really like a satisfying experience because you
really got into got to get into the head of
this music maker who like hear's he just moves through
the world and hears things that and thinks about sound
(19:20):
in a way that I don't, even though I think
about sound very intensely, you know, all the time for
my job. Another one that I really loved in February
is called Love All Caps, and it was UM a
portrait of a long distance romance. And it was the
writer Carla Wallace and his partner let me see Me
remind myself her name UM. And it was like voice
(19:41):
memos and UM like read transcript Russian Montrey is his partner,
of their, UM, of their just sort of like emails
do we one another? Voice memos to one another, like
reflections on phone calls they had. And you just got
this very very intimate portrait of UM, this love, this
(20:01):
this love relationship that in a way that I had
never quite heard before in audio. So I really I
really like that. I feel like challenged by that when
I listened to it. UM, I'm at the lake right now. UM.
(20:26):
I decided to walk the lake, which is not a
thing I do as much as I probably should. But
I felt off kilter all day today, not really focused
on work. I supposed to go to the gym. But
am I really going to go to the gym? Let's
keep it a hundred. Probably not. It's like I did
the dishes that felt like enough. I'm experiencing a lot
(20:46):
of loneliness anyway. Um. I thought through everything that I
possibly could do to feel better. I was like, should
I just spend the day playing video games? No? Should
I go like hang out with someone maybe like like
hook up with someone to have sex or something like that. No,
I don't really feel in the mood for that right now.
It sounds like a lot of work. I could just
(21:07):
do that alone. Why would I involve another person in that?
And then the only thing I could really land on was, oh,
I think I'm just gonna walk around the lake and
just like keep moving my body until I feel differently.
And right now it started off raining and kind of cold,
(21:33):
but I didn't really care. And now I've reached the
other side of the lake and all the rain is
two the north, and the sun is to the south
and the west, and these tremendous sun rays are landing
on me, and all the ducks and geese and the
(21:58):
occasional heron um are all like in the water and
it's just like this wildly beautiful moment. I do feel better.
I do feel like I can be a person again.
I think I just needed to exorcise, not exercise, but exorcise.
(22:22):
I guess to make space for something else, maybe feelings
for you anyway, I love you. Here comes a jogger. Okay,
I'm looking now at the bottom of my pocketcast and
(22:42):
I have these three limited series that are like I'm
surprised that I am listening to these because they're hard.
They're about hard things to listen to. So there's three. Um.
It's uh, there's this new podcast called Will Be Wild
that at UM from my former colleagues at wn A
C who are now making this for Pineapple Street Studios,
(23:04):
Andrew Bernstein and Elia Merritts, who for years made the
Trump Inc. Podcast and now they've done this special series
UM all about just like like getting into January six
and what who was involved and why and what's happened
in their lives since. And I have taken in a
(23:26):
lot of media coverage of January six and the investigations
that have followed after it, and somehow I'm like, oh,
I'm learning things and getting to know people and thinking
about these big questions about democracy in a really new way,
um thanks to this, and it's it's just really well made.
I'm like, Okay, feed me the next episode, Like you
know one of those when you're in those like limited
(23:47):
series episodes and you're like, I want the next one.
It's Christmas Eve when Jackson Reffit makes the biggest decision
of his life. He's been watching anime in his bedroom.
We're trying to I just hear and behind my wall
and my dad talking about the government and Nancy Pelosi
(24:09):
and it's all mumbled and I'm just like, God, this
is just it's crazy, Like it's crazy talk. Jackson's eighteen
years old and he's come to the conclusion that his
father is a dangerous man and he needs to do
something about it. What did he say that made you
think you could be violent? That he's gonna do something big?
And I know that's very vague, And that's what I
(24:31):
think triggered me to be so worried about it, is
how vague it was, and how I guess active he was.
It just got to a point where I was getting
so paranoid and anxious and nervous that I didn't really.
I almost wanted to take this off my shoulders and
give it to someone else. He googles how to tip
(24:53):
the FBI. A text box pops up. Jackson looks at
the blank space and gives himself a pep talk. Okay,
I'm gonna do this right now. I have to do
this right now. Um, get it over with. I'm gonna
just do it. He starts to type. I don't know
what my dad's doing. He's a part of a couple
of organizations, Texas Freedom Force. I believe it's called He's
prominent three percenters. He says he's high up in the organization.
(25:16):
He says he's doing something big. I don't know what,
but I'm just worried. I don't know where he's going.
He might do something soon. I have no idea and
send Is there anything else that I want to make
(25:37):
sure you listen to? That is a surprise the man.
Let me just let me do it. Last, Oh, one
thing you mentioned going to the playground. I don't know.
How do you do? You have multiple children? What's your
what's your child's situation? Um? Almost five two and a
half and another one on the way, which who was
(25:59):
a surprise having with your third kid. I'm having a surprise.
Oh my god. I want to know about that because
I just that was like a little pandemic flash that
we had a few times, these like intense like should
we do it? And then we were just like that
seems crazy and too many car seats. Okay, yes, I have.
(26:19):
I have so much to tell you on this topic
because that's what happened for us. There were flashes in
the pandemic where I thought, Wow, the world is crazy.
Wouldn't it be nice if they had a tribe, if
the two of them just had a whole tribe of
kids that you know, were there people when things go
when things get turned upside down? And my husband was
like absolutely not, like there is a moral issue with
(26:41):
putting more people on the planet right now because he
works in sustainability. And I was like, well, then you'd
better get a seck to me because it's your turn.
And he did, and we had this is too much information,
but you're in a sale. I can't not tell you.
We had hangover sex after an Alton John concert and
this is what happened. Third surprises. Wow, congratulations, thank you.
(27:06):
I think it's going to be great. The biggest issue
is getting a car that can fit all of the Yeah, yeah,
that's that's exciting. Well, you should listen to child Proof,
which is a new podcast that I'm also enjoying. Um
it's from ten Percent Happier and it's hosted by Yamin Khan,
and I feel like it's a very real. It's just
(27:26):
like a very helpful storytelling podcast. It's about parents and
how they deal with their feelings of overwhelmed, you know,
because young children are hard and we love them and
it's hard and we have mixed feelings and it's a story.
It's a podcast all about that. So I like, I
like listening to that. All right, I'm going into that
now because I really enjoyed him Happier and I also
(27:50):
like yasmine cool. So this is a great intersection of
two things that I are good. Well, congratulations and um.
You know, as a middle child, I always said I
wanted to have three and love the middle child the best,
but then I just didn't get around. So let me
put in a Let me put in a pitch for
loving the middle child the best and giving them all
(28:10):
the attention. Absolutely absolutely, from from from your lips, My
middle child's entire life, entire life. Thank you, Anna, this
was wonder Thank you. I will thank you very much
for having me. And that is it. That's truly it
(28:32):
for the pod Club. I hope you've had a wonderful
time trapesing through the podcast verse with me. I hope
you accept that I've just created that word podcast verse,
and I'm going to use it all the time and
make other people use it too. We have laughed, we
have cried, we've learned it out. I've tried to limit
the number of times I say fuck because we're also
on the radio. I've also overshared with all of you.
(28:55):
We've covered a lot, and we didn't even cover half
of it. Because the podcast verse is huge and it's
expanding every single day, for better or for worse. Even
though I'm not going to be making this show anymore,
I will still be listening to and probably making tons
of my own podcasts. So do not hesitate to send
me your own recommendations if you come across something that
(29:17):
is truly great. For now, I'm going to leave you
with the recommendations that Anna gave us. They are eleven,
will be wild and child proof. Of course, you have
to listen to Death, Sex and Money. It is one
of the greatest podcasts of all time. And I'm not
just saying that because Anna is our guest. I would
have said it even if she refused to come on
(29:39):
the show. Finally, big thanks to the team that I
could not have made this show without. We are executive
produced by me and Emily Maronoff. It was a wizard,
Darby Masters and Mary Do our producers. Lauren Philip is
our associate producer. Aaron Kaufman wrote our theme, so if
you're singing, it's a pud cast about podcasts, about podcasts
(30:02):
for years to come. Blame him and my husband Nick Castor,
who sings it. Special thanks to Nikkiatre as well as
to all of the guests who took the time to
come on this little show and make it what it was.
I've gotten so many podcasts recommendations from this show, and frankly,
I loved making it. It was a little slice of
(30:22):
goddamn joy every week for me. I love and appreciate
all of you so much, and I'll listen to whatever
any of you make next. Thanks guys,
Um, so do we have that podcast? Yes, I figured
it out. I got the numbers on the side of
the spreadsheet. So, um, we have made We put three
hundred and forty four things in the feed since we started.
God that that has to be more than more than
there were episodes of mash. I think, oh, let's see,
(00:25):
let's let's let's let's fact check ourselves. We can find
out it's a podcast about podcast podcast. Hello, welcome to
the pod Club. So I have some good news and
some bad news, which really feels like just the state
of the world. Here's some good news, here's some more snooze.
(00:47):
This is our last episode. Yeah, it's our last episode
of the pod Club. Everything has to come to an end,
and frankly, some things should have come to an end
earlier than they did. For example, Friends Never should have
had a season where Joey and Rachel got together. Never.
So I need to end before the pod Club has
the equivalent of Joey and Rachel getting together. I don't
(01:08):
want you to be sad. I want you to be
happy because we are saving one of the most iconic
podcast hosts to be our last guest on this show.
I'm gonna fan girl and no one can do anything
about it. Because it's our last episode. Today, we are
talking to the one, the only, Anna Sale. Anna is
the host of Death, Sex, and Money, the long running
(01:30):
interview show from w n y C that encourages conversations
about very uncomfortable things. Annah created one of the first
podcasts that goes to the places that many journalists do
not go. She talks about everything from how student loans
can completely affect and disrupt and ruin your life, to
(01:52):
the nuances of a marriage, to the realities of sex work,
to why viagra was created and what it means for society.
Large sod that just turned into a bad biographon. Anna
has been an inspiration to me and so many other
podcast hosts, so she is the perfect person to round
out this series of podcast recommendations. I started my first podcast,
(02:23):
Committed five years ago, which feels so long ago at
the at the time, Death Sets and Money really set
the bar for me for how how I wanted a
podcast to sound, For how good I wanted it to be,
for how just raw and vulnerable I wanted all of
my my interviews to sound. So yeah, this this is
(02:47):
my time to fan girl until you thank you for
setting me on a path to make too many podcasts.
You're welcome, You're welcome. Thank you. That means a lot.
What was the original concept when you were first starting
on death, sex and money? What did you say that
You're like, all right, this is what this show is about.
(03:07):
I think I was, you know, I was in a
period of life I was when I pitched the show.
I think I was thirty three, I had I was divorced,
I had been a reporter for a long time. Was like,
do I want to stay in New York City? What
is my life? Who? What am I about? And I
had met this guy who was living in Wyoming. So
(03:28):
I'm like being in one of those life moments where
you're like, oh, I didn't think I was going to
be in this situation quite like this. I thought some
other things were nailed down. My feeling was, um, you know,
I've always been a huge consumer of interviews and interview shows.
I love interviewing. That's always what I love doing. When
I was, you know, started out as a public radio reporter,
(03:49):
but I would get frustrated um listening sometimes where you
could tell, you know, they sort of like when when
interviewers would skip over the question that I most wanted
to hear because maybe it would come off as like
a little too banal or crass, you know, like, um,
you know questions like oh, when you were writing that
novel that you you know you've never written a book before,
(04:11):
like how are you paying for things when you quit
your job? You know like um? Or like how did
you know this is such an unlikely romance? Like wasn't
that terrifying to decide to just like commit? You know, um,
the good stuff totally, like the stuff that like animates
the conversation when you're talking with your closest friends and
(04:31):
getting caught up. So um, that's what I wanted to
make a show that focused on that wasn't going to
skip over those questions, and was going to do it
with a sense of like, I don't care what you
figured out, if it works for you, I want to
know how it's working for you or how it's not
working for you, what the trade offs are? Like I
(04:52):
wanted it to feel like a place with that was
driven by curiosity and not judgment, and that was very
open um about like who was who was a worthy
person to spend time with and listen to? Um? So
so that was Those were all sort of things that
I wanted to get into. And then when I thought
(05:13):
of the name death, sex, and money, I just thought
it was really funny because I was like, Okay, that
kind of like sums it up, Like those are the
big things, you know, That's why there are big stakes here,
you know, so let's let's just focus the conversation around
those things. I know this is a crazy question and
it's probably hard to answer because it's like asking you
to choose among your children. But do you have a
(05:33):
favorite episode? I mean I think that they change depending
on like what I need. Uh you know, Um, I
was I was in a really different place in my
life when the show started. Um. I was not married,
I was not a parent, I was living in New
York City. And now I'm married with two kids and
live in California, and you know, I'm sort of like
(05:56):
feel more much more confident in what I want to
contribute to world professionally. I had no idea when I
was starting the show. I was like, maybe this will work.
So I find it's like what what serves me is different. Um,
one episode that I feel like I just loved making
and I feel so proud of it just I haven't
(06:17):
heard anything else like it, and I loved the people
that I got to meet while making it. Was sepisode
called I Was Your Father Until I wasn't, And it started.
You know, part of the reason it's special is it
started with an email from a listener in our email inbox,
which is always a wonderful way to get a conversation going.
And it was UM, a young man you know, in
(06:38):
his late twenties I believe at the time who wrote
us this story and was just like, I don't know
if you've ever done anything like this, but UM, I've
just had this really, you know, really hard experience of
thinking I was the parent of this young girl. Um
that resulted from you know, a hook up with this
(06:59):
woman and I thought that I got her pregnant. So
I was in this child's life and the child was
I think between two and three years old when he
found out he wasn't the biological father, and then developed
a relationship with the biological father who was finding out
about this child after the child had been born. And
(07:22):
there's this scene that they I just I talked to
both men and there's this scene where they described what
it was like to move the crib out of the
one guy's home and loaded up into the truck of
the other guys to take it to the other guy's home. Um,
and it just was, you know, heartbreaking. But also what
(07:46):
I what I really found just really heart filled about
it was like these two guys just like showed up,
you know, like, um, they showed up for this child
with a lot of love of and in a really complicated, hard,
difficult situation, and they showed up for each other. Um,
And so I just love that episode. Victor started paying
(08:17):
child support, Tony stopped. Between them, they decided to treat
it like they were square. So Victor didn't reimburse Tony
or anything like that, but he did take a truckload
of baby stuff off Tony's hands when Tony was beginning
to try to move on a baby dresser, crib chair,
(08:37):
tons of toys, you know, it's what a baby's room
looks like. And so rather than him spend all of
this money and by new things, it made sense just
to have the things that she already loved and cared about.
And so one day he just came over to my
house and actors truck into my driveway and I just
(08:58):
unloaded everything into his truck, and that was I mean
physically and literally all in one afternoon. It became pretty real,
you know, to just put everything in boxes and then
just give it to this guy. You loaded up the
truck together. Did you cry um like around him? No? No,
(09:28):
I think we just shook hands. Can I tell you
a funny coda to that episode? Yes? Oh my god,
are you kidding? I always wanted something I loved hearing
from a listener because this basically you know what turned
(09:48):
out that the mother of this child had had been
with both these guys. She'd met him both at bars,
and um, we had a listener right in who was like,
where are the bars that this woman goes to? Because
I want to meet some Then like funny, yes, a
hundred percent, Like how do you how do you meet
(10:10):
two really good men in the same bar? I never
so I want to. I want to tell our audience
about this mini a mini series you've been doing called hard,
which is just the best name for what this podcast
is about. And the third episodes, um subtitle softening Expectations
(10:36):
has made me just chuckle every time. That also happened
in our slack channel, we were like, yes, yes, we
got that one. Yes, this is it and hard is
What else could it be about? But via gra and
the history of viagra and the cultural significance of viagra.
(10:57):
How did you decide to do a sub section of
the podcast UM? It was actually the idea of Katie Bishop,
who are longtime EP and UM executive producer, and she
was it was like more than a year and a
half ago, I feel like and and she just sent
a slack message and was just like, I have an idea,
(11:19):
and she somehow landed on the idea that UM noticed
that was the year Biagara came to market, and she
was like, I feel like years coming up on twenty
five years. It's a good moment to be like, how
did this change the way we UM talk about what
we do talk about about how bodies work and sex?
(11:40):
And what was the origin story of viagra? How was
it introduced at the time, and how is it marketed now?
And how has it changed sex? And and what I
found kind of interesting doing these interviews is like, one
of the people I talked to in that last in
the third episode is a is a guy who UM
how at a spinal cord injury and has been paralyzed
(12:02):
from his chest down since he was in his early twenties,
and um, the way that he talked about what you know,
he sometimes uses viagra to have penetrative sex with his partners.
He's a gay man. And he also has learned to
experience orgasm through stimulation in very different ways, like having
his head massaged, and what that feels like, and what
(12:26):
what what sort of climax feels like. It doesn't just
feel like one brief moment. It feels like this experience
where he described it felt like sunshine going all through
his vein. I ask for um, any kind of stimulation
in the places that I feel so I don't. I
(12:50):
don't have a lot of skin sensation anymore. I think
probably of like the real estate of my body, Like
my actual epidermis is no longer sensitive. So when I
am aroused or am in like a sexual experience, all
of that becomes like heightened and incredibly sensitive and responsive
(13:14):
to touch. So UM, any kind of stimulation like just
rubbing hands across my chest when I have chest hair,
or even um a little bit of like um stubble
on my beard or on my neck, especially on the
back of my neck. Sometimes I will intentionally make sure
that I have hair because the sensation is all that
(13:37):
much higher and intense. So UM, I will ask for
a partner to like rub a hand like an open
palm across the top of my chest. That always literally
kind of makes me gasp with pleasure. UM sometimes kind
of like actually the inside of untarget this this all
(14:00):
sounds so and like listening to me say this and
wondering what abled people must feel about. Like when it
comes time for me to actually experience the height of pleasure, UM,
I usually am asking or training a partner to kiss
my kind of like the front of my neck um
(14:22):
up to my ear, and while they're on my ear,
to take their fingers and run it against my scalp
on the same side of that year. And there's something
about that combination that literally takes me from like if
I'm like at a six of pleasure and arousal to
(14:45):
like at nine and a ten, where I am with
that sequence and staying there, I am climaxing within probably
a couple of minutes, and then um, if a partner
just stays there and continues to do that, I will
continue to stay in that climax space for as long
(15:07):
as that partners there or until it becomes unbearable. For me,
what I found interesting talking to him about it was
I was like, Oh, this way that we talk about,
you know, viagra and erections being the center of you know,
people who have penises sex lives, it does like it
(15:28):
has you know, yes it's public, and yes it's more
open than female bodies, but we're not. But it has
sort of like left out a lot of room for
experimentation of all these other ways you can experience pleasure.
And there's a lot of like anxiety and high stakes
around that that have gotten in the way of of
people having satisfying sex lives. I found that for me
(15:49):
it's sort of like complicated that narrative of like, oh,
the whole pharmaceutical industry rushed to help deal with the
erection problem and have ignored ignored other bodies for a
really long time. Um, it just complicated that. And I
also learned that like the discovery of viagara was like
a total surprise fluke. Um, they thought they were making
(16:09):
a heart drug and then they just they discovered that
a side effect, unexpected side effect, was corrections popping up.
God God bless it for the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, I
think it's helped a lot of people. You know, what
(16:53):
are you listening to to get inspired or maybe just
to take your mind off death, sex and money and
all of the heavy things you're listening to that you're
that you're talking. I listened to a lot of different things,
and it's I find it very interesting to just notice
what are the podcasts I turned to in what situations?
Because I think, you know, it's just this interesting window
(17:14):
into my appetite. UM and I think on demand any
anything on demand, like you're learning a lot about yourself
by what you choose to click on. UM. I I
am a real sort of omnivorous podcast listener. I'm like
looking at my my pod pocket casts. Um Uh. One
(17:35):
thing that I just find really like a fun listen
always that I listened to for craft and for like
inspiration is um the Eleventh from Pineapple Street Studios. Do
you ever listen to that podcast? So people have recommended
the Eleventh to me many times and I still I
(17:55):
still haven't started, but the concept of it is fascinating explaining. Yeah,
it's really it's this. I mean, it's also seems like
a very smart management tool. For people who are a
creative podcast makers. So so the eleventh is this show
where the eleventh of every month they release a new
kind of show, like it's sometimes it's a one off,
(18:15):
sometimes it's a limited series. UM, sometimes it's mean it's
just you don't know what you're going to get a surprise, UM.
And it has kind of like an experimental feel each month. UM,
Like last let's see March. I listened to this. It
was like a I did not never had never heard
(18:36):
of this album. It's it's it was like a feature
of this musician who's a long time member a broken
social scene, and he had made this album back in
two thousand seven when he was on paternity leave, where
he basically like interviewed a bunch of people that he
knew and his neighbors and then like took those recordings
and then made music out of them. So not just
like putting music underneath the tape, but like making his
(18:59):
one of his neighbor's voice into like a trombone, making
another one like representing it by like a certain percussive sound.
And it was really like a satisfying experience because you
really got into got to get into the head of
this music maker who like hear's he just moves through
the world and hears things that and thinks about sound
(19:20):
in a way that I don't, even though I think
about sound very intensely, you know, all the time for
my job. Another one that I really loved in February
is called Love All Caps, and it was UM a
portrait of a long distance romance. And it was the
writer Carla Wallace and his partner let me see Me
remind myself her name UM. And it was like voice
(19:41):
memos and UM like read transcript Russian Montrey is his partner,
of their, UM, of their just sort of like emails
do we one another? Voice memos to one another, like
reflections on phone calls they had. And you just got
this very very intimate portrait of UM, this love, this
(20:01):
this love relationship that in a way that I had
never quite heard before in audio. So I really I
really like that. I feel like challenged by that when
I listened to it. UM, I'm at the lake right now. UM.
(20:26):
I decided to walk the lake, which is not a
thing I do as much as I probably should. But
I felt off kilter all day today, not really focused
on work. I supposed to go to the gym. But
am I really going to go to the gym? Let's
keep it a hundred. Probably not. It's like I did
the dishes that felt like enough. I'm experiencing a lot
(20:46):
of loneliness anyway. Um. I thought through everything that I
possibly could do to feel better. I was like, should
I just spend the day playing video games? No? Should
I go like hang out with someone maybe like like
hook up with someone to have sex or something like that. No,
I don't really feel in the mood for that right now.
It sounds like a lot of work. I could just
(21:07):
do that alone. Why would I involve another person in that?
And then the only thing I could really land on was, oh,
I think I'm just gonna walk around the lake and
just like keep moving my body until I feel differently.
And right now it started off raining and kind of cold,
(21:33):
but I didn't really care. And now I've reached the
other side of the lake and all the rain is
two the north, and the sun is to the south
and the west, and these tremendous sun rays are landing
on me, and all the ducks and geese and the
(21:58):
occasional heron um are all like in the water and
it's just like this wildly beautiful moment. I do feel better.
I do feel like I can be a person again.
I think I just needed to exorcise, not exercise, but exorcise.
(22:22):
I guess to make space for something else, maybe feelings
for you anyway, I love you. Here comes a jogger. Okay,
I'm looking now at the bottom of my pocketcast and
(22:42):
I have these three limited series that are like I'm
surprised that I am listening to these because they're hard.
They're about hard things to listen to. So there's three. Um.
It's uh, there's this new podcast called Will Be Wild
that at UM from my former colleagues at wn A
C who are now making this for Pineapple Street Studios,
(23:04):
Andrew Bernstein and Elia Merritts, who for years made the
Trump Inc. Podcast and now they've done this special series
UM all about just like like getting into January six
and what who was involved and why and what's happened
in their lives since. And I have taken in a
(23:26):
lot of media coverage of January six and the investigations
that have followed after it, and somehow I'm like, oh,
I'm learning things and getting to know people and thinking
about these big questions about democracy in a really new way,
um thanks to this, and it's it's just really well made.
I'm like, Okay, feed me the next episode, Like you
know one of those when you're in those like limited
(23:47):
series episodes and you're like, I want the next one.
It's Christmas Eve when Jackson Reffit makes the biggest decision
of his life. He's been watching anime in his bedroom.
We're trying to I just hear and behind my wall
and my dad talking about the government and Nancy Pelosi
(24:09):
and it's all mumbled and I'm just like, God, this
is just it's crazy, Like it's crazy talk. Jackson's eighteen
years old and he's come to the conclusion that his
father is a dangerous man and he needs to do
something about it. What did he say that made you
think you could be violent? That he's gonna do something big?
And I know that's very vague, And that's what I
(24:31):
think triggered me to be so worried about it, is
how vague it was, and how I guess active he was.
It just got to a point where I was getting
so paranoid and anxious and nervous that I didn't really.
I almost wanted to take this off my shoulders and
give it to someone else. He googles how to tip
(24:53):
the FBI. A text box pops up. Jackson looks at
the blank space and gives himself a pep talk. Okay,
I'm gonna do this right now. I have to do
this right now. Um, get it over with. I'm gonna
just do it. He starts to type. I don't know
what my dad's doing. He's a part of a couple
of organizations, Texas Freedom Force. I believe it's called He's
prominent three percenters. He says he's high up in the organization.
(25:16):
He says he's doing something big. I don't know what,
but I'm just worried. I don't know where he's going.
He might do something soon. I have no idea and
send Is there anything else that I want to make
(25:37):
sure you listen to? That is a surprise the man.
Let me just let me do it. Last, Oh, one
thing you mentioned going to the playground. I don't know.
How do you do? You have multiple children? What's your
what's your child's situation? Um? Almost five two and a
half and another one on the way, which who was
(25:59):
a surprise having with your third kid. I'm having a surprise.
Oh my god. I want to know about that because
I just that was like a little pandemic flash that
we had a few times, these like intense like should
we do it? And then we were just like that
seems crazy and too many car seats. Okay, yes, I have.
(26:19):
I have so much to tell you on this topic
because that's what happened for us. There were flashes in
the pandemic where I thought, Wow, the world is crazy.
Wouldn't it be nice if they had a tribe, if
the two of them just had a whole tribe of
kids that you know, were there people when things go
when things get turned upside down? And my husband was
like absolutely not, like there is a moral issue with
(26:41):
putting more people on the planet right now because he
works in sustainability. And I was like, well, then you'd
better get a seck to me because it's your turn.
And he did, and we had this is too much information,
but you're in a sale. I can't not tell you.
We had hangover sex after an Alton John concert and
this is what happened. Third surprises. Wow, congratulations, thank you.
(27:06):
I think it's going to be great. The biggest issue
is getting a car that can fit all of the Yeah, yeah,
that's that's exciting. Well, you should listen to child Proof,
which is a new podcast that I'm also enjoying. Um
it's from ten Percent Happier and it's hosted by Yamin Khan,
and I feel like it's a very real. It's just
(27:26):
like a very helpful storytelling podcast. It's about parents and
how they deal with their feelings of overwhelmed, you know,
because young children are hard and we love them and
it's hard and we have mixed feelings and it's a story.
It's a podcast all about that. So I like, I
like listening to that. All right, I'm going into that
now because I really enjoyed him Happier and I also
(27:50):
like yasmine cool. So this is a great intersection of
two things that I are good. Well, congratulations and um.
You know, as a middle child, I always said I
wanted to have three and love the middle child the best,
but then I just didn't get around. So let me
put in a Let me put in a pitch for
loving the middle child the best and giving them all
(28:10):
the attention. Absolutely absolutely, from from from your lips, My
middle child's entire life, entire life. Thank you, Anna, this
was wonder Thank you. I will thank you very much
for having me. And that is it. That's truly it
(28:32):
for the pod Club. I hope you've had a wonderful
time trapesing through the podcast verse with me. I hope
you accept that I've just created that word podcast verse,
and I'm going to use it all the time and
make other people use it too. We have laughed, we
have cried, we've learned it out. I've tried to limit
the number of times I say fuck because we're also
on the radio. I've also overshared with all of you.
(28:55):
We've covered a lot, and we didn't even cover half
of it. Because the podcast verse is huge and it's
expanding every single day, for better or for worse. Even
though I'm not going to be making this show anymore,
I will still be listening to and probably making tons
of my own podcasts. So do not hesitate to send
me your own recommendations if you come across something that
(29:17):
is truly great. For now, I'm going to leave you
with the recommendations that Anna gave us. They are eleven,
will be wild and child proof. Of course, you have
to listen to Death, Sex and Money. It is one
of the greatest podcasts of all time. And I'm not
just saying that because Anna is our guest. I would
have said it even if she refused to come on
(29:39):
the show. Finally, big thanks to the team that I
could not have made this show without. We are executive
produced by me and Emily Maronoff. It was a wizard,
Darby Masters and Mary Do our producers. Lauren Philip is
our associate producer. Aaron Kaufman wrote our theme, so if
you're singing, it's a pud cast about podcasts, about podcasts
(30:02):
for years to come. Blame him and my husband Nick Castor,
who sings it. Special thanks to Nikkiatre as well as
to all of the guests who took the time to
come on this little show and make it what it was.
I've gotten so many podcasts recommendations from this show, and frankly,
I loved making it. It was a little slice of
(30:22):
goddamn joy every week for me. I love and appreciate
all of you so much, and I'll listen to whatever
any of you make next. Thanks guys,
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